A double way to distribute the drought aid fund: by crops and depending on the degree of water scarcity of each autonomous community. This has been proposed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food led by Luis Planas. However, the proposal has not fully convinced the sector. This was expressed this Thursday by the representatives of the agricultural organizations Asaja, COAG and UPA, who held a meeting yesterday with the General Secretary of Agriculture and Food, Fernando Miranda.
The money to be distributed, as Efe recalls, are the 276.7 million euros that make up the fund that was allocated for agriculture within the royal decree-law on drought aid for the entire agricultural sector, which in its entirety reaches a total value of 784 million, adding the item for livestock as well as other measures of aFiscal, financial, socio-labour or hydraulic supportamong other.
The representatives of the agrarian organizations have explained that the MAPA has asked them that about 75% of those 276.7 million is intended for herbaceous crops, including legumes and winter cereals and excluding sunflowers. “Another important game” would go to stone fruit and a smaller game for rice and tomato, leaving out the olive grove and vineyard, according to the MAPA plan.
Degree of drought in each CCAA
In addition, a second distribution route has been proposed that would go according to the degree of drought in each autonomous community, so that some such as Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha or the Valencian Community, for example, would be considered as high drought and others as Extremadura and Castilla y León they would be in a lower grade, according to the Department’s approach.
This measure has been the least liked by the agrarian organizations and they have raised it to the MAPA which, according to what the participants in the meeting have commented, will study the different requirements that the sector has sent them before announcing in the coming days the definitive plan to distribute the aid.
The president of Asaja, Peter Cheap, He has indicated that “there can be no discrimination based on territory” because “this is not a geopolitical distribution” but “a distribution of aid to those who really have these problems”. “There can be no first or second droughts. Whoever has a drought, whatever autonomous community they are in, has to have help,” has expressed Cheap.
“There can be no first or second droughts”
The representative of the COAG Executive Javier Fatas It has indicated that “when it comes to zoning the distribution, doing so by autonomous communities is not the best solution.” “All the autonomous communities can have more and less affected areas and we see that they should have worked a little more and do it by region” regardless of the community or province to which they belong, Fatás declared.
For his part, the general secretary of UPA in Extremadura and member of the Federal Executive of this agrarian organization, Ignacio Huertas, has indicated that he agrees with the approach that is made regarding the distribution of aid for crops but that he also maintains “differences” regarding the issue of zoning. In this sense, he has valued that the meeting of this day has dealt with “a draft that is subject to improvements” and that he hopes that his considerations will be taken into account.
The representatives of the agricultural organizations have indicated that the MAPA has also conveyed to them that it expects that between 50 and 100 million euros of the 250 million from the agricultural reserve of the crisis of the European Commission (EC) that Brussels was willing to distribute among the countries most affected by extreme weather events.
The help of €355 million For meat and milk farmers, it was already distributed at the time of the publication of the royal decree, with items of 100 euros per cow and 15 per sheep and goat for meat; and of 40 euros per cow and 10 euros per sheep and milk goat. In addition, 5 million euros of complementary aid for beekeeping were established.
